Preserving my culture is preserving the land

In an article dated Sept. 16, Vice published the words of 18-year-old Canadian Emma Lim of her promise and campaign on not having children in “a world that is increasingly unsuitable for life” through her campaign that follows this under the hashtag #NoFutureNoChildren.

The reality that is painted by Ms. Lim is one that portrays climate change and our future as one that is not worth living in. I would like to point out the flaws in such a campaign, as she is forgetting that our children are the ones that are going to continue preservation efforts.

Ms. Lim seems to forget that she is in the country of Canada, separated by only a border otherwise seemingly indifferentiable from Alaska. The reality of climate change in both these places is hitting us harder than anywhere else on the globe, with our forests burning, our ice melting and our cultures fading.

So why does she call to avoid having children just to spread a message to the politicians about such a thing? This is counterproductive to the fact that young people, including herself, are the ones who pioneer the efforts to preserve our globe.

I don’t believe that swearing off child-bearing is the way to changing the climate or the minds of politicians. This edges eerily close to the concept that the Earth needs population control. This concept unequally affects those who are already at a disadvantage, who at this time are the ones affected by climate change the most.

Indigenous people of the North know quite well the impacts of climate change are not incoming — they are already life-altering. We as indigenous people were and are the culture bearers and land-bearers of the North Slope and all of North America, and passing our knowledge of the lands on to our children is the way to the preservation of lands, as well as by telling our stories as the most-affected people by the changing climate.

I find that the knowledge gained from indigenous people should be passed onto everyone, indigenous or not, especially on climate change. To be so intertwined with living with the land means knowing the land, historically and currently. And to tell people to not have children cuts off the knowledge-sharing practice we all need to battle such huge issues.

To call upon people to avoid having children for the sake of a political campaign of climate change is not the way to conservation, and will not save the globe any more. I agree with Ms. Lim on the fact that climate change needs to be acted on immediately. But spreading knowledge and awareness of the right practices and actively stopping the harmful ones are the ways we can combat climate change.

Conservation of lands and the preservation of our globe is inherently a practice pioneered by the indigenous population on the globe, and I want to share the concept that preserving and sharing culture is preserving the land. I am a young person from a heavily affected area from climate change, the Southeast Alaska Panhandle, just beside British Columbia. Climate change is occurring, but we can do so much more than asking people to be childless.

Gabe Canfield is an Inupiaq woman and lifelong Ketchikan resident who currently attends Dartmouth College and advocates for environmental and tribal rights in Alaska. She is currently an intern at the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.

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